1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a cuvette rotor which has separate radially arranged cuvettes and can be employed in automatically operating centrifugal analysis systems for investigating biological fluids such as, for example, blood, blood plasma or blood serum.
2. Description of the Related Art
Before the analysis, the biological fluids are, where appropriate, diluted and, for determining particular properties or constituents, mixed with specific reagents as are required, for example, for PT, aPTT, fibrinogen, factor II-XII tests, and the reaction result is detected optically.
A cuvette rotor for such analyses is disclosed in European Patent Application 0,163,038. The separate, circularly arranged cuvettes extend radially and are closed on all sides. They each have two chambers which are separated from one another by a barrier and are provided with an opening for filling. Biological fluid is placed in the chamber arranged toward the axis of rotation, a specific reagent and, where appropriate, a diluent are placed in the peripherally arranged chamber. The contents of the two chambers when, owing to the action of the centrifugal forces, the biological fluid passes over the barrier into the peripherally arranged chamber. Optical measurement takes place at right angles to the plane of the rotor with a fixed path length of the fluid to be analyzed.